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Ruben is the Chief Diversity Officer at Bethel University, but has long been a faculty of the history department and continues to teach one course each semester at the college and one in the summer at the graduate school. As Chief Diversity Officer, Ruben is engaged in numerous strategic initiatives across all our schools, including the Shalom seminar, developing institutional capacity in cultural intelligence and intergroup dialogue, racial and other forms of bias mitigation, hiring for inclusive excellence, the Act Six Urban Leadership Scholarship Program, Cultural Connection Center, growing a thriving diverse student body, and more. Ruben's vision is for Bethel to be a place of belonging and shalom across the wide human diversity built upon biblical values and promising researched practices. This is essential to fulfill our strategic mission to "become the Christ-centered university of choice for this century," nurturing people "who can engage the world's most challenging problems to God's glory and for our neighbors' good." Ruben brings many of the trainings given at Bethel to leaders of Converge Worldwide and other churches and schools in the Council for Christian Colleges and Universities and the Twin Cities.

Started at Bethel

1997

Education

Vangard University - B.A., 1986

Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary - M.A.T.S., 1989

Boston University - Ph.D., 2007

Biography

As a Latino person of color, I grew up invisible in the public school curriculum of the day, indeed invisible in the whole of the Republic. It was not until I was converted to Christ through the dynamic ministry of a church led by former Los Angeles Latino gang types that I first saw myself as visible (in God's curriculum). I attended a Christian liberal arts college in California and my wonderful experience there made me want to seek a career in Christian higher education. However, as I traveled across the U.S. and continued my education and work, I was saddened by what for over twenty years I have called the cultural captivity of Christ to race, gender, politics, materialism, etc. Yet I have also met and learned from remarkable Christians who leave it all on the field for Jesus. These are the strong-in-faith-yet-humble who do not get caught up in unremarkable Christianity that is politicized, or marked by spiritual grandiosoty or prejudice that claims to love God while maintaining what I call Samaritan loopholes (John 4:9; cf. Luke 10:25-37), thereby hating or otherwise excluding many people and groups. My experience with Christians across the country and denominations, my education in biblical studies and the history of Christianity, and years of teaching have formed the foundation from which I do my work at Bethel and churches: that Christ must ever be culturally relevant, but never culturally captive, that remarkable Christianity asks not who is my neighbor, but who am I a neighbor to?

Courses Taught

At the college: Latin American Civ, Christianity in the U.S., Hispanic Christianity in the U.S., Minorities in America, Christianity and Western Culture